Monday, January 17, 2011

My computer sits in the laundry/computer room which faces south and up until yesterday about 3pm, this room was fairly dark. Well yesterday the husband and the man/boy decided to pull off the useless corrugated plastic off the top of the patio cover that sits just outside the south side of our home and now...it is so bright! They are only about 40% done but it has made such a difference already. How cool is FREE remodeling?

Felt like sharing some current favorites with you right now.

I'm a sucker for period pieces and Downton Abbey currently on PBS is very good. Episode Two aired last night and you can catch it on www.PBS.org if your local PBS station is not offering it.

Check out Amanda Murphy's website for the coolest place mat pattern I have ever come across. She posted a tutorial for the place mats and napkins here today.

Amanda Murphy place mat design

Do you listen to podcasts? I sure do, many of them in fact. Someday I will list them all but for now if you love food, here is a great podcast called Good Food that is produced here in the Los Angeles area by Evan Kleiman a lovely gal who owns a owns Angeli Cafe in Los Angeles. You can listen to the show directly from the above link or you can get it on iTunes. My favorite part each week is when Jonathan Gold (the guy has won a Pulitzer for his food writing!) comes on the show and although he talks about restaurants that I will never get to as they are just too far away, I just love his voice.

Last thing for today: Harold McGee. Basically the coolest food scientist around who not only can write about it but sounds great on the radio too. Too bad he doesn't have a podcast. He does have an occasional column in the New York Times. He wrote On Food and Cooking back in the 80's and came out with a revised edition in 2004. Not a recipe book but a book about how we as humans digest, cook and use food. He has a new book out called Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide for Making the Best of Foods and Recipes. Just put this in my Amazon.com cart.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Happy Friday to you all. Thought I might start off with some food on this gorgeous Friday morning here in Southern California. I made Paella last night for dinner and it was so good.

Paella - after

Paella - before

I also completed Block Five of the Designer Mystery BOM for 2010.

Here are the rest:

Can you tell that I have not squared any of these up yet? LOL - I just noticed all of the strings hanging off the edges! One last bit of fabric goodness; my Sunkissed fabric order for the Blockapalloza came yesterday. My boys thought I was nuts when I tried to show it off to them. I know YOU will like it.

My favorites - I just love the circles

Sunkissed - for the Blockapalozza

Fun day ahead for me; my best girlfriends are taking me to lunch to help me celebrate my b-day. I turned 42 a couple of days ago and actually had a wonderful day. The family and I went to have Indian Food for dinner at a restaurant in the Little India section of Artesia, CA and inside the restaurant there were (I swear!) three sari quilts hanging on the walls! Boy did I wish I had a camera so I could show you all. They were gorgeous. Someday when I am shopping there for spices, I will have to pop in a sari shop to check out the sari fabrics.

Oh one more thing: The gal who is quilting my That Girl Quilt called me last night and told me that I did a great job on the top! That was a thrill to hear from someone who not only quilts her own work but does others for a living. Brought a big smile to my face. :)

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

My last post was a week ago. I guess I have to shelve my great idea of consistency for this year. Oh, who cares anyway - I've seen people all over crafting blogs talking about how they have already broken their fabric resolutions, etc. I need to realize that this blog is not being graded so posting about anything is ok. I so enjoy all of the seemingly hundreds of blogs I read and do not mind when the blogger posts about something that seems irrelevant to their overall blog.

Alright, so what have I been doing? Garment Sewing. Challenging but very rewarding especially when the garment actually looks like the pattern picture. I am working on turning my younger son into Michelangelo. Yea, Michelangelo. Fascinating fellow by the way - lived to be 89. No small feat now, but this was the sixteenth century! There is your history tip of the day.

Seriously now, the boy has to be Michelangelo, in costume/speech and manner by the 21st of this month. I'm the seamstress and the historian and the husband is the speech pro, so the boy should be well prepared. BTW, my older son was a Swiss Guard (guardians of the Pope at The Vatican) two years ago and yes, I also made that costume.

Puffy 16th century Roman Style Shirt

I can't help but call this a puffy shirt as in the Seinfeld episode from the 90's. The pants are almost finished and then I have to tackle the doublet.

In a few days I have one of those things that comes around once a year (birthday) and I wanted to finish this quilt in time as a present for myself, but darn did this quilt give me trouble. (To clarify - I could care less how old I am but unfortunately important people in my life have passed away the day before and the day of my birthday and some years I get a bit sad around this time.)Back to the quilt. I tried THREE times to quilt this baby and it just does not want to be straight line quilted. I was not about to teach myself how to FMQ in a short amount of time, especially with this quilt so I decided to have someone quilt it for me. It is now all packed away and I was told to expect it back next week. Can't wait to bind it.

All packed up and ready for travel

Binding all ready

Before I jump into anything new, I am working on catching up on the Designer Mystery BOM from the Fat Quarter Shop. I have the fabric from months five and six all cut out and just began sewing together pieces from block five yesterday.

Designer Mystery BOM Month Five

Month seven is still in the envelope and month eight will be arriving any day now! Doing a BOM is a great way to learn how to piece as I have improved so much since I began month one. That first block is pretty awful and I just may use all of the extra fabric they send to do the first block over again.

I'm off to bring the older boy his trumpet that he forgot at home. What are teenage boys for anyway? HA!

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

I have wanted to make the Multi-Tasker Tote from Anna Maria Horner for almost a year now. With Holiday gifts done, I was able to make some great headway just after Christmas and then finally finished the bag today.

First thing I learned - this bag is BIG! I have to learn to look at finished measurements to get an idea of how big what I am intending to make really is. This sounds dumb but I have no idea if I will actually use this bag as I hardly carry anything around. Cell phone, sunglasses, wallet and a pen - that is all I carry in my purse. Cutting this pattern in half would have worked better for me, but I do love the bag. I used Anna Maria Horner's new Innocent Crush fabric for both the exterior and interior fabrics and they were (of course) lovely to work with. I enjoyed working with the pattern (first time use of a AMH pattern) and found it relatively easy to understand - I stopped a few times and had to read and read again to truly understand what was instructed.

Anna Maria Horner Multi-Tasker Tote

I am linking to Fabric Tuesday at QuiltStory for the first time to show off my first finish of 2011!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Staci over at The Confused Quilter had a great post about trying new things in 2011 and I would like to piggyback on her idea. According to Merriam-Webster at m-w.com, two definitions for the word idea are:

An entity (as a thought, concept, sensation, or image) actually or potentially present to consciousness.

A plan for action.

So here is my idea list for 2011. My list has taken me approximately five minutes to think up so excuse me if I come across as crazy or out of my mind.

Talk about gardening more! I grow a lot of food and barely mention it on here.

Join a quilt guild.

Make a quilt or two for someone I do not know - a pay it forward kind of thing.

In a few weeks I will be starting the Teaching Credential program for the Social Sciences (history, economics & government) and I am sure that this new world will bring new ideas to me.

Photo of the day: We went to the Rose Parade yesterday. What a marvel it is to see the different floats move by us. This one was not my favorite, but was pretty creative. The creators of this float were celebrating the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man. Are they trying to make us feel old?

A vast majority of this year was taken up by #1 on my list, and although I'll be going right back to school in about four weeks starting the Credential program (to be a teacher) I feel such a sense of completion and success at finally accomplishing this goal. Those five items you see above represent bigger things; they all opened up my world in a way I never knew before.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

My goodness, it has been fifteen days since I last posted. That fact right there illustrates to me that consistency needs to be my word/goal for 2011 with this blog. After listening to the latest Quilting... for the Rest of Us podcast, I have been mulling over goals/resolutions for 2011 in my head for the last few days and consistency keeps popping up in my head. Jennifer at That girl... That quilt has also inspired me with her post regarding blogging.

The bottom line is that I want this blog to work/flourish/grow in 2011 and just like with anything, I need to feed it in order to make that happen.

So I began this beautiful clear morning here in Southern California by a little redesign to the blog. I like simple and hope that you do to. If you like what you see, let me know. If you think I could improve on anything then please comment on that too.

Now on to the fun portion of the blog for today. Photos! Here is a recap of the items I made for family members for Christmas 2010.

SeaGlass

Back of SeaGlass

So this was the MIL quilt that I officially named SeaGlass as I was working on the quilting. As usual the photos do not do it justice as it really turned out well, although you can see in the puckering on the back that I need to work on my basting skills! Spray basting is in my future - along with a big piece of plywood/saw horses in the garage to make it happen.

Now we have a few photos of the things I made for my nieces for Christmas.

Poochie Bag from Happy Zombie

Another Poochie Bag from Happy Zombie

Voile Scarves made with AMH fabric

The Poochie Bags (pattern by Happy Zombie) were filled with books and made for my younger nieces who truly seemed to enjoy the gift. The scarves were made for the older nieces who opened their gifts, smiled and moved on. Big letdown for me but hey, I can't just expect them to pull out trumpets and begin telling the world how much they love their gift, can I? Another day, another post for that subject.

I'm off to a day of crafting, cleaning up after my husband who is finishing up the year long painting project in my tiny 1950's kitchen and a trip to Joann's for their end of the year sale - there are a lot of Quilting items on sale!